acebird; your responses sometimes come across as insulting, that said, many of your questions are also very good for beginners (and beeks w/ moss). I'm Just hoping they're not turned off by some of your remarks and decide to shut you down and out.

Beekeeping has an extremely sharp learning curve. That is a fact. It may not be Rocket Science, but its close :-D

thomas

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"Trust those who seek the truth, doubt those who say they've found it."

he won't get shut down, or out. we are a pretty patient bunch and i, at least, realize that things on here don't always come across as we intend :evil:.

i would never want to discourage a new(ish) beekeeper. i remember how enthused i was when i first started and i remember the very basic questions i asked. whenever i am going to try something new, i come back with basic, and for some of the old timers here, probably stupid, questions.

i thinks folks on here get pretty wide latitude unless the just get nasty. that has happened......

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

It is my experience that you can't anyway. That center one is glued in so bad you have to break the frame to get it to budge. I always go for the outside one first. That is probably something you can learn on your own.

That may be true in a new hive, but a mature hive everything is so glued and tight that I found it easier to pull from the middle. Yes, and learned the hard way. Not anymore....

Seeing as how you already have all the answers, why do you even need to post questions on a forum then dispute everything that people say and then start with the insults?

I am very sorry you take my respones as insults. I am here to see what people think because I don't know everything. I agree with some ideas and I disagree with other ideas. It is far fetched to say I dispute everything that people say. As what has already been stated by someone else, there is no consensus when it comes to beekeeping. The nearest I can tell is it is 50/50 on almost all topics. So if I side with the first 50 I am the bad guy on the last 50. How is that, because I am the new guy?

You are better not siding with anybody. Both sides are right. Being relatively new here, if you try arguing a side, you are going to end up being chewed up, most issues have been beaten to death already. And if you side against anybody, a finger pointed at only one year's experience will be able to say "on what grounds...". :-D

I can tell you that what I did and how I did it changed drastically in the first few years of beekeeping. With all the reading and questions I'm sure the second year goes a lot better for you.

Quotefrom acebird: I think most will agree that winter is the slow period when it comes to beekeeping so I got a couple of months to learn what I can so I can decide what I am going to do next season.

Winter is the slow period of beekeeping only in that the beekeeper is not actively engaged in working his bees. It is still a time for a lot of repair and preperation from last season for next season. Beekeeping is a 12 months a year side job, unless your a commercial beekeeper and then it's a 12 months a year occupation.

At one point during this discussiion it was mentioned at it is easy to word posts in a way that another might take the wrong way. I've seen a lot of that as I've read through this post. Those who have posted short retorts need to man up, develop a thick skin and take the time to realize that a put down was probably not intended. I read every post as if anything that might be taken as a put down was just unintended wording, as a result I seldom get my feathers ruffled, although I have taken offense on a few occassions and then I leave to doubt as to how and why I was offended.

Beekeeping is one of the most amazing hobbies, avocations, or occupation a person can have and one can never learn enough about them. (My other hobbies of pigeon racing and ham radio are also interesting) and a person should approach beekeeping with an attitude of acheiving an eager education. Ask questions, read/listen to the answer, then decide upon a course of action.

I'ver noted comments in some of the postings on this website about turning the hive during the winter. This idea, to me, is a good way to lose behives as they are being disoriented at a time they need orientation the most. In the times I experimented with this concept I lost the hive 90% of the time, even strong hives. Now I have my hives facing south driecting into the majority of the winter winds in my area (winds that somethimes reach 80+ mph) and haven't lost a hive except when it was knocked over by flying materials (sheet of plywood) and split apart during a storm.

If you ask 20 beekeepers a questions, expect 22 answers. Use what experience you have (even if it consists only of introductiong a package bees to a hive last week) to sift through those answers for a likely course of action, settle on one, or meld a few together into a seperate answer and impliment it. If it fails, learn from it and move on to the next round. Don't become discouraged, and try not to be offended by the sarcastic smart allecks.

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Life is a school. What have you learned? :brian: The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!